In Sarah Vowell’s novel “The Wordy Shipmates,” Vowell often shows bias towards more liberal thinking and she uses several writing methods to persuade readers to agree with her. One instance that displays this is when she claims immigration legislation throughout history “exposes a people’s deepest fears.” (218). The Massachusetts Bay Colony’s court issued an order to keep out people who may be dangerous to the commonwealth, after people like Anne Hutchinson voiced unpopular opinion. Throughout the history of the United States, there have been immigration laws, such as the Anarchist Exclusion Act of 1903 and the Patriot Act of 2001, that parallel the colonists fears of people who may be dangerous. Throughout American history there have been …show more content…
She tends to follow a longer sentence with a blunt one to persuade readers to agree with her opinions. The longer statements she uses, with very few pauses, is meant for the reader to build up intensity before she uses blunt statement to make her point. By writing shorter statements, Vowell wants to sound objective, even though she is stating an opinion. Shorter statements are often declarative in Vowell’s writing. Not only does she make this use of syntax when writing about immigration policies, but she also does this when she’s writing against the actions of American soldiers towards prisoners of war in the Middle …show more content…
This was a major fear throughout the Cold War, from 1947 to 1991, since communism goes against the United States’ democratic capitalist system. Congress expressed fears of communism coming into the United States through immigrants, especially those who did not assimilate with American culture. Their solution to this would be similar to the Puritan’s solution. In order to keep dangerous communists out of the United States, even more limited and selective immigration was the solution. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 now allowed for communists to be deported. This act also gave immigrants from Great Britain, Ireland, and Germany an unfair two-thirds majority of the immigration quota spots, which was an apparent attempt to deter immigrants from other countries, such as China, which is a communist country. Another effort to prevent the spread of communism was led by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. During this time, McCarthy investigated suspected communists in the government and entertainment industry and this restricted some work opportunities and some civil